The shepherd boy view
As a child, Jeppe Aakjær often walked the fields east of Karup Å in the area around Fly, tending sheep. The waiting time was long, so little Jeppe often spent his time looking west across Karup Å and the heath around Flyndersø. He was quite captivated by the large brown moorland with Djeld Bakker to the southwest, which almost seemed like mountains in the otherwise flat landscape, and he even compared them to the Apennines in Italy. Sahl Church to the northwest could also be seen in the distance, illuminated by its whitewashed walls. The enchantment of the beautiful landscape, however, prompted the adult Aakjær to make a little heartfelt complaint, blaming Hedeselskabet for the fact that it had now begun to “tear” the landscape with its “dull” plows. The article was written around 1926, so Jeppe Aakjær must not have looked kindly on Hedeselskabet’s attempts to turn nature into a cultural landscape for the sake of profit. Anyway, back to the matter at hand, namely Stubbergaard, which is the main subject of this article.
Stubbergaard, thrills and chills
From his vantage point on the eastern side of Karup Å, Aakjær was apparently also able to glimpse the remains of Stubbergaard, which lay on the “lake slope” down to Stubbergaard Lake and looked like a “worn-out shoe” with Sevel in the background. As a child, Jeppe had been told many legends and stories filled with horror and excitement about the legendary Stubbergaard, and they filled his mind when he walked his lonely path as a shepherd boy and looked over towards Stubbergaard. As an adult, he wanted to go into the archives to find out what was true and not true about these legends and stories, which is the reason for this article.
The Hjelm and Stubbergaard earth mound
However, Aakjær begins by telling what he has found out about Hjelm Hede, where the whole scenario takes place, as Hjelm Hede stretches from Flyndersø Mølle at the eastern end of Flyndersø and south to the Viborg- Holstebro highway. According to legend, the heath was named after a certain King Hjelm, who is not mentioned in the royal line, but in an archive, Aakjær found a document from 1163 where a certain Helm from Thubbetorp was mentioned. However, Thubbetorp had to be considered a typo, so the correct word was Stubbetorp, which then became Stubbergaard and later Stubberkloster. Incidentally, the word torp originates from Old English and denotes an emigrant village. In this case, it could be the village of Sevel, from where people had moved to Stubbersø. Hjelm is therefore likely to have been a sizeable landowner and the owner of Stubbergaard, and perhaps also had the entire Hjelm Hede and Flyndersø area among its possessions. In the relatively recently written novel “Priorinden”, which takes place at Stubberkloster, the name Hjelm also appears, so Hjelm was undoubtedly a historical figure who played a major role in the area in the early Middle Ages.
Trandum Church
From examining the name Hjelm and Hjelm Hede, Aakjær now turns his attention to Trandum Church, which was also one of little Jeppe’s vantage points as a shepherd on the western side of Karup Å, and which was linked to the stories about Stubbergaard. When Aakjær was a shepherd boy, however, there was no church in Trandum. There was only a square building plot on the old church hill, which was filled with lime, rubble (remains) and not least weeds, but the old cemetery and the church plot spread eeriness and tension, so people were reluctant to approach the place when darkness fell, and for a little boy like Jeppe, the danger of meeting both ghosts and apparitions lurked, so he should not enjoy anything. He had also been told that the church key to the old church was kept on a small low farm just southwest of the church site. When the new Trandum Church, which today is a beautiful red-brick church, was consecrated on December 17, 1891, the old church key was hung in the new church, but when little Jeppe left as a shepherd boy, only the eerie church plot remained. Jeppe Aakjær decides to investigate what became of the old Trandum Church and what connection it had to Stubbergaard.
The demolition of Trandum Church
Before Aakjær began his investigation, he knew that several of the region’s medieval churches had been closed and demolished shortly after the Reformation. This happened after a royal order for Grættrup Church in Nordøstsalling in 1552, which Aakjær has described in another article. Grættrup was added to Junget Church and the building materials from the demolished Grættrup Church were to be transferred to the repair and expansion of Junget Church, which did not happen according to the regulations. According to legend, the villain behind the demolition of Trandum old church was the lord Knud Gyldenstjerne of Stubbergaard, who had had the farmers’ own church demolished in order to use both syldsten (granite blocks), timber and furniture for Stubbergaard’s repairs. For this crime he was punished after death by not being able to find peace at night, but had to wander around Hjelm Hede as a ghost at night. This was also one of the horror stories that little Jeppe had been told about Stubbergaard. However, according to Aakjær’s historical research, it turned out that the legend was untrue. the “perpetrator” was another lord, namely Iver Juel of Stubbergaard, because in a document from 1553 (a year after Grættrup Church’s death sentence), the king wrote to Iver Juel that he had permission to demolish Trandum Church and use building materials from here to expand Sevel Church. The old Trandum Church had undoubtedly been as unique a building as the other whitewashed medieval churches from the 1100-1200s that we know so well both here in the region and the rest of the country, so you might wonder why such a valuable building had to be demolished. In the case of Grættrup Church, the reason for its demolition was that the parishioners were so poor that they could not support a priest and contribute to the running of the church, and the motive for Trandum Church was probably also financial.
Sevel Church is expanded
Whether the reason for the closure of Trandum Church was also due to poverty among the peasants in Trandum is not clear from history. If so, one must assume that after the demolition of their church, the farmers in Trandum (and Mogenstrup) had to go to Sevel to attend church, just as the parishioners in Grættrup came under Junget Church and Parish. In connection with the king’s decision to dismantle Grættrup church, it was also a lord who received permission, namely the lord of Jungetgaard, who had the so-called “right of call” over the church, i.e. the owner and supporter of the church. Iver Juel also had this right to call Trandum Church, and he therefore undertook to expand and repair Sevel Church with the demolition materials, and according to him, he also expanded Sevel Church from both doors to the west and the tower, and he also put a lead roof on the church where there had previously been a thatched roof. In total, it cost him 700 Daler. In the case of Junget Church, there was nothing to indicate that the recycled materials from Grættrup Church had been used as intended at Junget Church, but several recycled materials from Grættrup could be traced to local manors and other farms. Nor is it known whether the beloved Iver Juel had allowed some of Trandum Church’s building material to benefit his own Stubbergaard.
Ivar Juel’s achievements
There is no evidence that Iver Juel had cheated in the mid-16th century when it came to Trandum Church’s recycled materials, but his honesty and truthfulness may be questioned when you read excerpts from his autobiography, as Aakjær has done. According to Iver Juel, his father was Kjeld Juel of Aastrup (near Varde), and he was buried in front of the high altar in Varde Church, so he must have been an important man with a well-known surname at this time. This information about his father’s burial at the high altar in Varde seems to be true, but Iver’s merits are open to question. He claims that he once rode a blind horse from Rome across the Alps to Cologne. Another time in 1521, he had traveled from Rome to the southern German city of Speyer, where he had contracted “cold sickness”. From here he traveled to Cologne, where he was poisoned by eating a fresh goose. Here he must have come into conflict with someone, because he had to flee the city on foot with a friend up through Germany to Ditmarsken, Husum and Tønder before he reached Ribe – two days after Christmas. Aakjær sarcastically calls the trip something of a “foot sporting achievement”, just as the trip with the blind horse across the Alps had not been “all jokes”. Aakjær also wonders why he had to flee Cologne. Were enemy soldiers after him, or was it creditors? Before Iver Juel became lord of Stubbergaard after he had studied in Germany. It was perhaps during his studies that he carried out his dangerous exploits with the blind horse and the escape on foot through Germany. Iver Juel had probably studied theology in Germany like so many other young nobles, because when he returned home to Denmark, he tried “many things”, including becoming a bishop in Norway, which at that time was part of the Danish kingdom. However, he didn’t quite succeed, so he had to “settle for becoming a provost. However, what seems to have really kick-started Iver Juel’s career as a gentleman was when he was given the honorable task of escorting probably the country’s most powerful man, Field Marshal Johan Rantzau, who had just defeated Skipper Clement and his peasant rebels and thus paved the way for King Chr. 3 and the Reformation, at the Herredagen 1537 in Viborg a year after the Reformation. The escorting of Johan Rantzau applied to the entire Ribe Diocese, and Iver Juel must have done well, because the following year in 1538, King Christian III gave Juel Stubbergaard Monastery, which had passed to the crown in connection with the Reformation, as a fiefdom with the right to call Trandum and Sevel churches, and it was in this capacity that he was responsible for the demolition of Trandum Church.
Stubbergaard Monastery
Stubbergaard Monastery, which was the first settlement on the shores of Stubbergaard Lake, can be traced back to the 13th century, when it was established as a Benedictine monastery for nuns, as stated in an unspecified document from 1268. A few years ago, the history of the monastery inspired local retired banker and now author Lars Novrup Frederiksen from Vinderup to write a historical novel in which the monastery forms the setting for the story, which takes place in the years 1275-1287. The novel is entitled Kirstine, which is also the name of the main character in the novel. Kirstine is from the dominant White family, which included both Archbishop Absalon and the Valdemars. When her father dies and her mother remarries a brutal lord who abuses a young nobleman’s daughter, she is sent to the desolate moors to avoid scandal by the nuns at Stubbergaard Abbey, where she is to be educated in convent life. However, against all expectations, she quickly makes a career within the monastery and ends up as a prioress and will also play a role in the murder of Erik Klipping.
The Reformation
this little digression is included to draw attention to the fact that Stubbergaard functioned as a nunnery for almost 300 years and was of no small importance to the region, the church and the king. In connection with the Reformation and the accompanying civil war, Stubbergaard Abbey was attacked and plundered three times, so it was a tormented and plundered convent with 11 impoverished and probably deeply traumatized nuns that Iver Juel took over in 1538. With the fief also came the obligation to provide for the 11 nuns, who had to live at the convent until their last rites.
From convent to manor house
As sheriff of Stubbergaard Abbey, Iver Juel immediately set about turning the abbey into a manor, and the abbey changed its name to Stubbergaard. The buildings, many of which had suffered fire and destruction (perhaps 50%), were repaired and Iver Juel set out to reclaim as much land for the estate as possible through cultivation and the incorporation of copyhold farms. In 1547, he bought Stubbergaard from the king for 12,765 daler, making him a true lord of the manor. At this time, he had up to 150 copyhold farms with associated tenant farmers, who, in addition to having to pay royalties and tithes to the church, were also required to provide serfdom on his own fields. Five years later, in 1552, he demolished Trandum Church and expanded and improved Sevel Church. However, he was not allowed to admire his rebuilt church and farm for so many years, because he died on August 24, 1556 at 7 in the morning in Stubbergaards “Fruestue”. The following Sunday, he was laid to rest at the high altar in Sevel Church – nothing less would do – with the participation of many prominent nobles and churchmen, including Privy Councilor Iver Krabbe. The common people, i.e. the local tenant farmers, of course also attended, but there was far from enough room in the church, so many had to stand outside. However, Aakjær believes that the Trandum farmers did not show up as they had not recovered from Iver Juel taking their church from them.
Mette Munk
Iver Juel’s wife Mette Munk was now a widow at Stubbergaard, and like her husband, she continued to improve and expand Sevel Church, including adding a lead roof and extending the tower, which was fitted with a tiled roof. Mette Munk died in 1586. Her son Kjeld Juel now took over the farm and continued to expand it. He also built a wooden bridge over the lake so that the cattle could graze. In 1604 Kjeld Juel married Christence Juel, and when he died in 1606, Stubbergaard came under her care and she left her mark.
Christence and her three husbands
Christence had no intention of being a widow, so she quickly remarried, but her new husband didn’t last long before he died, and the same happened with her next husband. She then tried a third husband, called Knud Gyldenstjerne. She was not lucky with him. Firstly, he was in debt, and secondly, he was a peasant scourge of rank. He sucked up and tormented his poor tenant farmers with taxes and slavery to such an extent that after his death in 1640, the tenant farmers attributed so much evil to him that they had to have his ghost, who hunted restlessly around Hjelm Hede at night, banished by the priest in Vridsted. As mentioned earlier, it was also Knud Gyldenstjerne who was wrongly blamed for the demolition of Trandum Church, which had actually happened almost 100 years earlier with Iver Juel in charge.
Giant songs and persecution of priests
After the death of her third husband, Christence did not try her hand at marriage again, but in her old age sat at Stubbergaard and, among other things, passed the time by writing down “giant songs”. She was also said to have become very religious in her old age, in the orthodox Protestantism of the time, which even the then Chr. 4 defended with zeal. When the local priest Jørgen Friis in Sevel questioned the purpose of good deeds in his sermons in order to preserve the faith, as Luther had done just over 100 years earlier, and thus went against the conservative Protestantism of the time, the religious mistress took action and reported the liberal priest to the authorities. The poor priest, who was strongly supported by his parishioners, had to go through the whole machinery of bishop, trial and judgment. Chr. 4 intervened in the case and demanded a death sentence. The court wouldn’t go that far, but the priest was sentenced to a year in irons on Holmen, which in practice meant that he was put in chains, and with a Swede to whom he was chained day and night. It should be noted that a Swede was the country’s worst enemy in those days. In 1652, he was released from his chains and exiled to Halland, which had now become Swedish. Here he became a priest and died in 1688.
Monastery ruin
Christence outlived three husbands and six of her seven children, but when she died in the early 1650s, many heirs had to share the debt-ridden manor, which also had many mortgagees. As late as 1678, there were 12 mortgagees on the estate, including the crown. In 1725, the Sehested family at Rydhave took over half of the ownership, and in 1790 Niels Sehested was the sole owner of Stubbergaard, but things didn’t get any better, as both fire and poor finances seem to have plagued the farm. In 1826, Stubbergaard was taken over by Viborg Stift, but the decay continued and farming operations ceased. In 1919, Stubbergaard was bought by a certain Villads Kudahl, who set about rebuilding the farm and restoring farming operations. As of 2021, Thorben Dahl is the owner and utilizes the land for agriculture and forestry. Stubbergaard with its original monastery buildings has not existed since the 1800s, and today there is only a single monastery building on the site, which is believed to have been a storage cellar in an original four-winged monastery complex built of brick, of which several wings had several floors.
Skive, March 2025
Erland Christensen